So Day 3 was a Fun Day at Sea. I had flashbacks to the cruise that Sammy and I went on back when we were in our early 20's. She just wanted to sunbathe, I wanted to DO stuff. Well, baby doll wanted to lay out on the deck and I was itching to be out and about. So we parted ways for a bit. And it should be noted that I did not say baby doll wanted to sunbathe because the sun was still in hiding at this point. Meanwhile, I went down to the theater and played a game of Bingo. They had to waste a little time in the beginning so they asked for volunteers to come up on the stage to play a game. The hospitality chick, Katie, noticed that I couldn't talk and she said I needed to be able to speak to play the game. I was okay with that and left the stage. She felt so bad that afterwards she came up to me and awarded me a 'boat on the stick' trophy just for being a good sport. Too funny. All in all, we really just had a lazy day. I think we both got a little drunk, hung out playing more cards. We managed to get to one of the shows after dinner on this night. I was sound asleep within the first five minutes and slept through the whole thing. This makes baby doll laugh. It's like when your kid is teething so you throw them in the car seat and drive aimlessly around the block to get them to sleep. All you need to do is sit me down at a show and I'm promptly out like a light! Meanwhile, baby doll said the show was really good. And that was it for the night.
Day 4 saw us at the port of St. Thomas. This was absolutely THE BEST day of the entire trip!! I woke up in a good mood and full of energy. The sun FINALLY made an appearance and the island was absolutely gorgeous!
I told baby doll that T and I have a tradition where you're not really on vacation until you put your sunglasses on. So after leaving the boat we paused on the pier and baby doll put his sunglasses on and gave a gusty sigh.
Yep, Lulubell and Bat Pig now have a baby Paradise Pig to look after. :-)
Anyway, mission for the sunglasses was accomplished, twice actually, and I was finally on vacation too.
Next up was the excursion we had purchased which was to ride the sky tram. I think this sounds much more thrilling than it was but that's okay because the views were spectacular and baby doll and I enjoyed it immensely.
On the way up in the tram we were looking at private residential homes on the hillside. There were fountains and infinity pools and landscaping to the nth degree. Beautiful! Baby doll commented that it felt like we were at a live taping/airing of House Hunter's International. I have to say, I totally agreed. It was really very cool.
At the top of the tram was a little 'tourist trap' area, I guess would be the polite way to say it? There were some little shops, a couple of fried food kiosks, and the lady selling jewelry had a whole slew of different parrots in her booth that you could have your picture taken with if you wanted. (And had the cash!)
Down a level were some lookout points and a huge bar/seating area. Baby doll and I decided to make ourselves at home. Had us a couple of cocktails, played some cards, and basically just soaked up the sun and the views! It was so relaxing it was ridiculous. I never wanted to move again.
And I got to see a big, fat iguana trundling along the road, looking for a nice sunbathing rock. It tickles me to see somewhat foreign animals roaming about in the wild.
Baby doll and I finally decided we should get our butts moving along. Many years ago when Scott had been to St. Thomas, his friends had taken him to Magen's Bay Beach which he felt was the most beautiful place he had ever laid eyes on so he really wanted to take me there. On the way back down the tram we ended up chatting with a family who was cruising on the ship Sunshine (we were cruising on the ship Glory). They were doing the same ports as us but in the opposite direction. So they had just been to Grand Turk and they were raving about the excursion they did there. Some coast to coast thing. Grand Turk is only 7 miles long so coast to coast is easily doable. Baby doll and I had signed up for a stingray excursion on Grand Turk but this family planted a seed to be followed up on later.
We got down from the hillside and hailed a cab (open air trolley bus type thing in reality). Again, we met a really cute couple from the Sunshine on the truck and we were yacking with them the entire trip over to the beach which was where they were headed too. I have to say, baby doll was right, that beach was gorgeous! A little crowded but not too awfully bad. Baby doll was slightly bummed. Back in his day, nobody had really 'discovered' that beach yet so it was empty the last time he had visited. He was a bit disgruntled to see the masses had descended on 'his' beach. We did some wading, climbed some rocks, enjoyed the views, the spray, the sun.....it was simply outstanding.
Day 5 saw us pulling into the port of San Juan. Baby doll and I had signed up for a Mojito and Mofongo walking tour excursion. Great excursion! Our tour guide's name was Noami. Pronounced No Amy. She rocked.
We got more interesting stories and snippets of history than I've ever heard on a tour before. We got to hear all about the coqui tree frog, and we saw the narrowest house in the world (yes, it's in the Guiness Book of Word Records!), I saw authentic cigar rolling, and a mango tree. I was picking raw almonds up right off the street. It was amazing!
Noami was really good about pausing in the shade when she had her longer anecdotes to share with us and she even has it set up with a couple of store owners along the way to stop in their air conditioned stores, sample their wares, and hear more history. It was during one of these stops that I got a little antsy so I popped outside and walked up the block a little. Guess what I found?
Yep, Lulebelle and Bat Pig also have a baby coconut piggy now. They're procreating like crazy!!
At the end of the walk we landed at a restaurant where we got to sample some Puerto Rican cuising and partially make our own lunch, chicken mofongo.
I don't know what happened but baby doll totally kicked my ass in the preparation of this dish.
Here's his mofongo:
And here's mine:
After we ate it was back to the ship for some more relaxing.
I'm going to pause here and add a note. I'm telling you all the fun and happy stuff from the cruise. I'm not letting you know that I shit blood every time I go to the bathroom or that there are random vomiting accidents every other day for no apparent reason. And even worse they come out of my stoma, not my mouth because a) I think my esophagus is probably mostly closed at this point and b) some fistulas have opened up inside my stoma between my trach and my esophagus making easy access for vomit. I'm not letting you know about the emotional roller coaster I'm constantly on. There were crying binges. Everything would be fine and then I would suddenly burst into tears and couldn't stop. My legs are starting to get really wobbly and I often feel like I might fall. I DID fall the day before we left for the cruise and still have a huge lump and bruise on my ass from where I landed. I didn't trip or anything, just fell over because I'm losing strength to hold myself up. So, while the cruise sounds fantastic, please keep in the back of your mind that a very unhealthy individual actually went on this cruise and there were struggles and bad times on top of the good. Baby doll helped me through all the rough spots and overall, I'm very glad that we went despite the challenges. Just wanted to throw that in there. Back to all the happy, good stuff.
Day 6 had us landing in the port of Grand Turk. This is the saddest, ugliest island I have ever laid eyes on.
Baby doll and I had looked at our excursion again and we found a blurb in the description saying that we had to be comfortable in water that was over 5 feet deep. That wasn't in the original description and I can't go in that deep so at the last minute we swapped excursions and decided to do the one that the Sunshine family had told us about. It was okay. It was not as rave worthy as they made it out to be. We did a lot of driving around, went to some little outdoor kiosks which all sold the same exact thing over and over again. Then we stopped at a beach and that part was kind of cool. The tour guide had a little boat set up with all sorts of aquatic creatures in it. We got to hold a starfish and a sea urchin. He showed us a lion fish and a sea penis. He had some really great samples of the local ocean life. He then grabbed a huge conch shell, hammered a hole in the end, cut a big muscle, and slid out this great, long, slimy, live conch. He then whipped out his knife and started cutting off all the non-edible bits and was left with a palm full of white meat which he then cut pieces off of and handed out to everyone to eat. Baby doll was game and he said it was fantastic! He said it was better than any calamari that he had ever eaten, for sure!
Then we went to a lighthouse to see some wild donkeys. I had stopped at a super market in town and bought some carrots to feed them. Only one of the four donkeys was interested in carrots. The rest of them seemed pretty spoiled with eating potato chips. Yeesh. So, then it was back to the 'town' we started in. I was a bit depressed after the tour. As I said the island was just very sad, I can't imagine anyone wanting to live there and the excursion just wasn't 'all that' for me.
Baby doll and I decided to go check out Margaritaville. I've never been in one of those before. That place is awesome! Swimming pools, wave pools, water slides, huge ass bar, live dj, games being played, music thumping, quite the little party plaza going on. I loved it! I ordered myself an 'authentic margarita' and baby doll got himself a plate of cracked conch. At one point I pulled the seashells out of my pocket that I had picked up off the beach and put them on the table for baby doll to admire. As we watched, one of them got up and started to walk away! What the hell?? I took some poor little guy from his home! The shell was teeny tiny too, smaller than a dime. I didn't know crabs came that small! So, I walked him down to the Margaritaville beach and set him free. Headed back to the table, sat down, looked down just in time to see some little legs being pulled back into the tiny brown shell I had picked up. <sigh> Back down to the beach to release him too. For the rest of the night I kept checking my third shell for life. I was all sorts of paranoid after that. Luckily, the last shell was safe.
I'm afraid to admit that the first drink went down so easily that I had a second. If I had stopped there, a good time would have been had. Unfortunately I guess I asked for a third drink. I have no recollection of this. I don't have recollection of much of anything after that. I guess I shoved a cop and she threatened to arrest me, I ended up passing out in baby doll's arms, he had to get the security guard to have the ship send a wheelchair to come get me. I don't even know what else happened and I'm okay not knowing the details. I went to bed at 6:00 and didn't get up again until 9:30 the following morning. I hang my head in shame for losing half a day of the cruise. That was the second elegant night so I missed out on wearing one of my cute dresses again too. Luckily baby doll was smart enough to just let me sleep and he went to elegant night.
And now we're up to the last day of the cruise which was another fun day at sea and another incredibly lazy day for my man and I. He did his usual Lido deck breakfast:
We played cards, drank some of the hair of the dog that bit me, and soaked up our last day of escape.
I did a little shopping:
We meandered up to the Serenity Spa and snuggled up in a big Papisan type bed for a while:
Thanks for the update, Q. What a great read! (good, bad and the ugly) Great pics, too! I didn't realize you were so savvy with blogging... :)
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